Davie Hay has told the Celtic players that they need to shoulder the responsibility for the club’s failure to make it into the group stages of the UEFA Champions League.

The Parkhead side meekly exited the competition after a 4-3 aggregate defeat to Malmo on Tuesday night with Ronny Deila coming on for criticism for Celtic’s failure to land the windfall which participation in the group stages would have brought.

However, former Celtic manager and player Hay has insisted that the Hoops players need to look at themselves.

“I don’t buy the criticism of the manager that is team selection was wrong or his tactics were wrong,” he said. “It was a limp and inept Celtic performance that lacked desire and commitment and never more so in the second half of that 45 minutes in Malmo when Celtic never looked likely of getting back into the game.

“The bottom line for me was that the Malmo players looked far more committed to their cause than the Celtic players did.

“And while I would never have been one to slaughter players in public, had I been in Deila’s shoes there is no question that I would have left many of them without a leg to stand on in the privacy of the Celtic dressing room.”

Meanwhile, Celtic coach John Kennedy has insisted there have been angry scenes of recrimination in the Hoops training ground as the club seek to move forward from what has been a major set-back.

Celtic will discover at 11am today who they will be up against in the group stages of the Europa League and Kennedy has insisted that the club will lift themselves for the second tier tournament.

“We don’t ever have any heated discussions,” said Kennedy. “That is one thing we don’t have. We discuss things, we look at facts and we will look at the videos and ask questions – what are we doing here, what were we doing there?

“ As a group there is no-one pointing fingers. Players, staff, we are all in it together and we know that the other night wasn’t good enough. It is as simple as that and we aim to make sure we come up with the right remedy and we attack every game now as best we can.

“ It is no secret that the Champions League is where we want to be. As I said, I think we have a team there who are capable of doing that but we didn’t perform well enough to do that on the night and that is what has cost us.

“We have the Europa League now, there are some good teams in there and we have to make sure we are positive enough to approach that with the right head.”

And Kennedy has also maintained that Celtic’s much criticised zonal marking system will not be dumped on the strength of Tuesday night’s display.

Celtic have lost 28 European goals in 21 matches since Deila took over from Neil Lennon, but Kennedy remains a proponent of the strategy.

“We firmly believe in it and the players we have at the club are suited to that style of play,” he said."In one game it has not worked for us. Over the course of last season I think we conceded just two goals from set plays domestically.

"There was a number of factors that led to the goals and why we did not perform well enough and as a group and a unit we need to take responsibility for that and understand what went wrong so that when it comes to this time again we are better prepared for it.”

Kennedy was speaking at Hampden as Celtic were paired with Raith Rovers in the third round of the League Cup.